Professor Hans-Henning Schröder: "Russia achieves success in Syria"

14 Mar in 16:55

The political scientist and expert on Russia, Professor Dr. Hans-Henning Schröder commented on Russia's military campaign in Syria in an interview to Germany's NDR television channel. "There is no doubt that the Syrian campaign has become a success for Russia. I must admit that the Russian leadership has wisely analyzed the current situation in Syria. As a result of which, Russia was able to achieve military and political victory, using relatively small number of special forces and air forces in cooperation with Iran and Bashar Assad's military, whom it trained," the expert believes.

However, according to the professor, the problem is that the war is still not over, and today it becomes obvious that it is not possible to achieve a peaceful solution of the issue jointly with the Syrian regime, Iran and Turkey. It seems that the peace process needs to be internationalized, but Moscow, Ankara and Tehran are opposed to that measure.

Hans-Henning Schröder believes that Russia's success in Syria was largely made possible by the mistakes of the United States in the region: "The Kremlin clearly benefits from the vacuum that resulted from the vague and ineffective Middle East strategy of former US President Barack Obama And Russia was able to fill this vacuum with a well thought out strategy and political concept - which, of course, can be called cynical, since it places a bet on support of a stronger side in the person of Bashar Assad. But in the end, Russia has achieved success and regained the position of an important actor in the Middle East since the Russian Federation has been squeezed out of the region for many years."

The expert noted that today no solution to the situation in the Middle East is possible without Russia, which have good relations with Turkey, Iran, as well as constant contacts with Israel and Saudi Arabia. "And this is not only military, but also the foreign policy success of Russia," Schröder said.

In his interview, the political scientist also touched upon the issue of Turkish-Russian rapprochement against the background of common goals in Syria, which causes discontent among the NATO countries and, in particular, the United States. "Turkey's current steps in the Middle East are in line with its own interests. The fundamental problem, recognized and used by Russian policy, is that Turkey's Middle East policy is contrary to the interests of the United States and other NATO partners - Ankara and NATO are growing apart, and Russia is using it. We have faced a clever foreign policy strategy that places a pet on the use of existing conflicts and contradictions among other things," professor Hans-Henning Schröder concluded.